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All of us have experienced often the vulnerability of clinging to the money raft on a stormy sea of change!

We are all students of supply and demand. I have always had enough while also close to the extremes of way more than enough and extremes of need. I have danced in many arenas and suited up this girl well enough to fit into them all. Ease is nice, but stress I found was actually higher in the higher dollar days I knew. Imagine that! I had more options, or more created options, that complicated the world I inhabited – I had to learn to navigate for myself the hard way.

Nowadays, I choose to live and interact in the realms where people have known a bit more struggle as opposed to the upwardly mobile movers and shakers. I have had more eye-to-eye realness in a dollar store than on the she she sides of town. I also recognize and am grateful that among the money obsessed, I learned to be myself more clearly. I learned to walk along my own way; I learned to find the needle of the others along the path in the haystack land of striving . I got to watch the wheels of karma turn, sometimes, too.

Close to the bone, we have an opportunity to be real. The struggle can embitter, or the struggle can break open the hard little seed of fear – we can share humanity in the bread line or at the tea party, though the tea party is a bit tougher to enjoy, for me.

The ebb and flow of needs met seems best left to such mysteries as the sea – I move up and down the sandy shore with the rhythms of the earth – I work hard – I try not to worry – I try to share – and not waste – I enjoy the pleasures when they come, often seeking out little indulgences for my tongue, my eyes, my skin that add beauty and joy to my experience and do not cause a moment’s hesitation of ambivalence or guilt. What is guilt? 🙂

I started my 2nd job yesterday at a senior recreation center – and while the pay is unbelievably low – I liked it. I feel somewhere deep inside, this is a logical next step to something else I cannot see yet. I can teach and also help a bit in a low stress place, full of sunshine through the windows and from within the people who come there. I feel grateful.

I stare into the fog as it hovers this morning – unable to see but able to sense the green growth spurred on by the bright sun that is obscured but never leaves.

You are an artist with paper Ms. M. All kinds of paper– with little shark teeth attached and many layers and colors often to be found green when needed…which reminds one of what art is really worth and what is really important.

Your new work sounds to be ordered from the heart. Once that path is set on in motion, the rest of the plan is given the opportunity to come into view. Kudos for using the feeling gauge as the navigation guide. Can’t go wrong when growing into the future as it is beginning here now is the focus.

I’m learning the way of growing from the here now. What an interesting experiment I am conducting with the feeling gauge equipment left in the back of the truck; well looky here, old tools! Let’s see if silence, feelings and heart work better than the 5 year plan-it-out with the left brain tactic 🙂 xo!

This line of yours reshaped my landscape of probability: “The ebb and flow of needs met seems best left to such mysteries as the sea…” There is something beautiful about this notion of accepting that needs are met in ways that are organic and ever-changing, sometimes unpredictable, sometimes in excess, sometimes with a sacred simplicity. I once thought abundance would mean putting some distance between myself and what I feared, as if once I figured whatever it is that needs to be figured out, out, I’d be like Secretariat- indomitable on that homestretch- continuously opening the gap to the world’s clutches. I’m beginning to see and accept the bounty at work within the world, and the power of sinking into it, and your post reminds me of this feeling. There is wholeness and warmth in your stance to a second job that seems already to have made it a lovely expression of Life.

I can at times catch myself grasping for the Secretariat stretch, as you so wonderfully illustrate, but what a gift experience can be to help me know that peaks reached and rock bottoms hit were still essentially all the same. All part of the same wave pattern that is my life. Grasping for imagined good and running away from bad. So Buddhist I am tonight. What is in this now is what is perfect for me at this stretch, and fear will always be knocking on the door of me caught up in illusion. knock knock, any option from here is only a beat away. So enjoy your take on what ever is being served up!

This was so comforting as my husbsnd is really feeling down about money. ..and I am opening to what I can do to help..without getting stuck trying to make it better.. He is also a teacher and has to work another job..a low pay low stress one as well.
Thanks for your perspective. I allways feel more centered visiting here.
♡♡♡ I like the part about a step to somewhere unseen.

We do share a similar dynamic! I have been learning so much about moving forward, stepping into the unknown. You just reminded me I wrote another post about this a while ago:https://lifeasimprov.com/?s=the+path&submit=Search
Sometimes the next step is made into the air, and we have to trust the path will meet us – it does! It already has! Much love sent to you, Laurie, as you make your way on the path in motion. xo!marga

I am learning bit by bit to let go of a lot of fear around money and ‘having enough’. Much was learned from parents who lived through much harder times, but much is my own personality. There is a constant war inside about ‘earning what is worthy of my effort’ and ‘a job that I enjoy is not really a job at all….’ Thank you fir sharing your experience and thoughts, it is always useful to hear how others make the leap and what it might feel like! Regards, Jackie

Money is such a common bugaboo in so many ways…my parents were born in the depression and their issues and the issues of their peers are long reaching, it seems to me. Thank you for sharing with me your own internal dialogue/war. The leaps in the past several years that I’ve made into trust seem to be leading me to a new flow in this arena. So nice to meet you here, Jackie!